Mean And Green In Prescott, Arizona

What started out as an idea to beautify the community and call attention to green transportation alternatives in Prescott, Arizona turned into an ugly debacle fueled by racism and City Councilman Steve Blair.

Miller Valley Elementary School had an idea: involve the students in a brainstorming project to spur interest in planet-healthy modes of transportation. The results – some practical, some delightfully whimsical – were commissioned to be displayed in a huge, custom-painted “Go On Green” mural spanning two outer walls of the school. Students from Miller Valley served as models for the people who appear in the colorful painting seen here.

Something disturbing took shape as painters known as “The Mural Mice” began to sketch out and apply color to their creation, helped by children of the school. Passersby began to shout epithets: “Get that n----- off the wall!”, “Get that s--c off the wall!”, and “You're desecrating our school!”. The subject of their ire? Two figures in the mural were persons of color.

Steve Blair, who hosted a talk show on KYCA 1490 (he was fired earlier today) took the tense situation to a new level. The Daily Courier reports that Blair made the following statement on his show:

"I am not a racist individual, but I will tell you depicting a black guy in the middle of that mural, based upon who's president of the United States today and based upon the history of this community when I grew up, we had four black families - who I have been very good friends with for years - to depict the biggest picture on that building as a black person, I would have to ask the question, 'Why?'"

Blair went on to say that he dislikes the word “diversity” and that it “shouldn't be forced down people's throats”. He also doesn't “see how that mural ties into anything in the community” even though the mural was: commissioned by the school and the city of Prescott, featured drawings of actual Miller Valley Elementary students enacting ideas generated by Miller Valley Elementary students who then voted on the winning mural sketch, and painted by Miller Valley Elementary students. How could that mural possibly have pertained to anything remotely connected to Miller Valley Elementary School or the Prescott, Arizona?

As news of the mural circulated through Twitter, I received a message from @prescotttourism and entered into an exchange with Jack D. Wilson, mayor of Prescott from 2007-09. Mr. Wilson made the following comment: “Prescott has 43000 people, most do not agree with Steve Blair, former Mayor Jack Wilson”

I asked Mr. Wilson if he had other information to share on the matter. He offered that Blair has a troubled past with respect to racial diversity and tolerance in Prescott; demanding that dual-language signage be removed, and engaging in another racial dust-up (see comments) in which Blair referred to Hispanics as “taco flippers”.

In the end, Steve Blair wins in his campaign to “lighten up” Prescott; the Miller Valley Elementary School mural has been altered by the Mural Mice at the request of the school's principal. The “darker” children will now be “lightened” so that they appear to be “happier and brighter”. Growing up in a climate of overt and covert racism isn't likely to make the children of Prescott “happier and brighter”; it's likely to make them silent or leave. Either way, Blair wins.